The present disclosure relates to the voting systems for elections. More specifically, it provides a system and method for providing paper records of voter selections and generating cast vote records from those paper records.
A variety of electronic voting systems are well known. Electronic systems include, for example, direct recording electronic (DRE) voting systems that electronically record votes to directly create an electronic cast vote record. Electronic systems also include, for example, systems in which paper vote records are generated based on a voter's electronic vote selections, with the paper vote record then being scanned for creation of the electronic cast vote record and electronic tabulation. As used herein, an electronic cast vote record is an electronic record that indicates the determined voter's choice or selection in a manner determined in accordance with the voting system. Thus, an electronic cast vote record is an electronic record of a voter's cast voting selections and may be used in the vote tabulation process.
The use of paper records in an electronic voting allows the creation of a paper trail of voter selections, for example for use by an elections office for audit purposes. Such voting systems have also been called “hybrid voting” as it is a cross between all electronic DRE voting and paper-based hand-marked ballots. Such hybrid systems provide an electronic voting system in which a printed vote record (PVR) is produced (allowing a paper record to be an official record), and then the PVR is scanned on a digital scanner for cast vote record creation. The PVR may be full sized sheets of paper (for example standard 8.5×11 inch or 8.25×14 inch paper stock) or may be other specialized sizes. Traditionally, the PVR contains a barcode that is encoded with the voter's vote selections. The barcode is then scanned with a scanner and decoded to generate the electronic cast vote record. It has been found though, that some voters may find such a process to lack transparency as the voter cannot readily review the barcode to confirm the encoded data matches the voter's vote selections.
It would be desirable to provide an electronic voting system that utilizes PVRs in a manner that provides better transparency to the voter.